and The moon’s Celestial Highness

I kinda just want to chill out and listen to the Beatles, yeah? Well, maybe it’s just that I’ve got “Ticket to Ride” stuck in my head. But wouldn’t that be the way to spend the afternoon? Just to put on “One” and piss the afternoon away…

I’ll pick up my guitar, too. There’s one song on the album– I don’t remember which– that I want to learn. I rediscovered my guitar the other day, actually. I played a lot. The next morning, when I washed my hair in the shower, the tips of my fingers hurt as I massaged my scalp. I don’t really “massage” my scalp, as such, but what else do you call it when you use your fingers to dig in and make sure you scalp gets really clean?

My new favorite place on campus: Leigh Lounge. I’ve had several scrumptious naps there this semester already. Scrumptious is typically a culinary adjective, but believe me: these naps (today’s especially) were scruptious. The sort of nap that, if it were a cheesecake, I’d eat a slice every afternoon. Not frozen, but firm. A smooth, delicious texture, with the occassional nut or chocolate chip. Ya know?

We haven’t seen the sun for some days, here in Bozeman. I heard someone say that they read somewhere that Bozeman has the worst air quality in the nation right now, according to EPA measures. The fires blazing in Paradise Valley are still raging. Out of control. So it looks like it’s foggy and overcast, but it’s really just smoke. I look outside and it’s gloomy and grey, but there’s not a cloud in the sky.

At night, beneath the light-posts, you can see particles floating down, in their tee-pee shaped cones of light– it’s like watching snow fall, except this snow isn’t cold or wet…

The smoke does funny things, too.

Like yesterday. As I wandered, looking for my car, I noticed something curious in the sky. The sun, blood orange through the smoke, was a perfect half-circle– but the BOTTOM half rather than the top. Imagine a beach and the sun, sunk half-way below the ocean horizon.the sun, setting over the ocean– a perfect half circle. But now take that half-circle sun, turn it a hundred and eighty degrees, and hang it, red, midway in the western sky. Like an absurd shape, hung in the sky, in a play-world or Hollywood fiction. For perhaps a fleeting moment my mind entertained the idea that it actually was, and wondered what is that, unable to accept the reality that what I saw was the sun.

Gradually, as I watched, whatever it was that obscured the sun (could smoke obscure it so thoroughly? there was only a razor line between half-sun and dull-grey cloud) shifted away and, like the lifting of a stage curtain, slowly the entire sun was revealed.

Oh, I think I fail to convey to you, chere reader, the scene or even an accurate description. But I’ve preserved it for myself– certainly, we know even the most scarring of impressions fade with time.

It’s a strange world, being smoke filled. It often feels more like a Mordor sceen from Lord of the Rings than anything else I could liken it to.

About Mark Egge

Two truths and a lie: Mark Egge is an outdoor enthusiast, opera singer, and a transportation data scientist. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.